


The Symphony of Mister Pissoff

by VsaFic



Series: That one time tristana almost got longbow’d to death in Demacia after Sylas’ revolution [3]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Absurdist philosophy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, F/M, Major Character Injury, Medical, Medical Inaccuracies, Nudity, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VsaFic/pseuds/VsaFic
Summary: Lulu, timid apprentice to legendary healer Soraka at Mount Targon, gets assigned on a rush to treat a patient without help for the first time, with minimal preparation. It throws her for a loop.—Rating subject to change. Prelude to Tristana Almost Gets Longbow’d to Death.
Relationships: Lulu/Veigar (League of Legends)
Series: That one time tristana almost got longbow’d to death in Demacia after Sylas’ revolution [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654630
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. I. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> I like telling stories as multiple pieces that connect across a timeline, and bit by bit that timeline assembles. So, even though this is all the same series, get ready to see lots of timeline jumps! 
> 
> Soundtrack Selection : Lavender — Ken Nordine

Lulu’s treasured one skill over all others, over healing and magic and her Fae companion, for she’s held it since wee childhood—Whenever _that_ had taken place—and it continues to serve her now: Tuning her mindscape out of her landscape. Daydreaming. Right now, she frolics with Pix in an infinite flower field. All the combined scents overwhelm her nose in a chemical symphony that gets her drunk on life and color, their textures tickling her epidermis in a way only flower petals can. Her landscape, though, is partway through the arduous climb of Mount Targon, cause Lulu is a fool, an irredeemable fool with no self-preservation and a net total of two working neurons. 

If she dies here, she won’t even rot away to fertile soil to continue her natural duty as a nest for flower and fungi to feed in and grow. Targon’s just dirt, sharp, spike, sand, stone all around. It smells dead, barren; that’s probably the biggest disappointment of all this. A perfectly useful yordle carcass gone to waste.

The flower field withers away. This type of mindfulness isn’t cutting it anymore. It’s _so_ cold; the wind has whipped her purple locks against her face so often she’s pretty sure she’s been unwittingly flagellated by it, every impact burns like poison ivy on some poor ignorant victim’s dermis. Pix constantly shuffles in her coat and hair, trying to keep at least a pretense of comfort on this storm of sand and cold and death and minerals; she fixes on the burning of each leg muscle as she tugs on its pulleys to move a thigh, a calf, a foot, take another step forward: Nothing matters much, nothing’s notably changed in her view for a while. All she has is each step.

Maybe, she shouldn’t have chased a legend. Maybe magical healers nestled smack amidst the Targon Climb aren’t more than rumors and she’s caught words without intentions again and made the leap like the utter buffoon she is. Targon’s whipping hair against face is probably its punishment for such a lowly jester so much as entertaining the idea of making her way up—

It’s probably a mirage. _No way._

The hut is only a smudge peeking through the storm. It wouldn’t have snapped her out of her thoughts if the lights had been off. It was the glow that yanked her attention to it. Lulu’s a simple being; if it shines, it gets her.

Her legs hurt so, so much.

A silhouette steps out from it— successively, the dust settles, the wind soothes into breeze. Even the cold seems less oppressive, though still as sharp, it tickles her nostrils more than it burns them; the mountain itself respects this apparition enough to open a path for its steps.

It has tamed Mount Targon.

Lulu squishes Pix with her shoulder, jutting it up in reflex when he pops his little head outta her mane, tickling her neck. He squeals and berates her in Fae. _Sorry, buddy._

As it approaches, Lulu can mentally sketch a character design; its features sculpt from blobs like a fine marble bust. A long horn peeks out its forehead— No, wait, those are hips, a noticeable waist dip— _Her_ forehead, what she thought was a tail turns out to be a long, milky braid, kept in order by interspersed golden bands. What beautiful hair. She stretches uncannily as she approaches. The storm and wide distance between them painted her smaller than she is; she doesn’t appear to stop growing any time soon. When she finally steps before Lulu, the fey witch can offer a rough estimate height range of four to seven Lulus stacked on top of each other. No, scratch that— Her legs have given in from pain while waiting; make that six Lulus tops with leg length in account. Well, the mathematics don’t matter. She’s huge. That’s what matters.

She peers down on Lulu with big bronze eyes and they’re so penetrating she veers her head away, shutting them tight so she can pretend they’re not digging into the depths of her hypothalamus.

“You’re one of the most unusual climbers I’ve found,” she says, her voice ringing like a dainty bell; she chuckles and Lulu’s rattled by a blizzard of feathers.

The sorceress feels herself at ease, that voice kneading her into purple dough. It’s so soothing; she fights the sudden anvils on her eyelids. The storm’s simmering has revealed to her that it’s dawn—yordle night vision can be such a double-edged sword; she’s kicked her way through trekking an entire night. She wants to curl into this woman’s lap like a kitten and doze off with her hair as a blanket.

“I’m not trying to climb Targon,” she mumbles.

“Well, you need some practice with map reading, then—You’re a third of the way up.” A second fit of feathery tee-hees.

Lulu wants to laugh and cry simultaneously; what noise comes out is pitiful. The giantess’ playful demeanor dies fast as a candle when one blows on it. Still warm, trailing smoke—definitely not vibrant anymore.

“Are you Soraka?” The enchantress whimpers.

The other woman kneels, giving her such perspective shift it makes her head spin.

“I am, yordle.” Her eyes widen as they drift a millimeter left. “And fey.”

“Then I got there,” Lulu says, slurred. “I made my climb.”

“You don’t want to be an aspect, correct?”

She shakes her head no and immediately regrets it, squeezing her eyes to ride the migraine out. “I think... I _know_ I’m not... Targon knows too. I just wanted to make it here. Not any further up,” The migraine is replaced by the ache of her shivering muscles; she pulls in a breath that sears her lungs to yell at the mount itself. “You hear that?! I’m not gonna keep climbin’ up!!!” It ripples back to her from all directions, swallowed and regurgitated by dry boulders.

“Why did you come to me?” Is the answer. She inflects it in a tone that speaks to Lulu the true ‘ _what_ - _do-you-need-to-get-healed_ ’ inquiry.

“I need lots of things healed. More things th-than I can say right now,” she manages through chattering teeth. “But I don’t want them healed by you. They are _mine,_ for me to carry forever.” She curls into herself, rubbing her hands frantically—she can sparsely feel the friction, her fingertips are pale enough she knows she’s supposed to be concerned about that. Soraka’s facial features shift ever-so-slightly in an expression Lulu theoretically knows is curious but can’t read exactly.

“I’m here cause,” she slowly lands the palms of her hands on the dead soil. Skin may as well glue to it; it’s that cold. She leans her forehead down in a gesture of humility, muscles wobbling like jelly. “C-cause I wanna be a healer.” Her forehead follows suit touching the ground, and her bangs actually crinkle when they squeeze against it.

“I heard in Ionia of... a legendary healer... Up in Targon. I have no purpose. I can’t go back to my friends, and where I go I am turned away, tossed aside. Maybe here, I can be of use again, and people’ll stop...” her throat is burning; Targon air is dry and light, she unceremoniously transitions to a fit of coughing.

“Oh, no... you poor, poor thing.” Lulu can almost feel the Starchild’s words physically pet her head. “Look at you, you look like a cupcake frosted purple and topped with powdered sugar. Let’s go inside—Hurry, before you turn into an icicle.”

Lulu would lose it at the analogy if she wasn’t so sore. Soraka’s hand must be about six times the surface area of hers; everything melts into motion blur as she cradles her. Lulu’s not generally that fond of being babied, but is so weak she can’t resist the warmth and care and so gives her ample freedom to manhandle her.

She drifts into soft thoughts as the reverb of Soraka’s steps makes her whole body vibrate. Sometimes, Tristana would hug her when she’d just returned. She would hug her and let her rest against her warmth, running fingers through her hair when she was scared and lost—

* * *

She comes back to herself thanks to warmth. Warmth of blankets, warmth of magical flames burning in a fireplace much too big.

“I will bring you food,” the Starchild says. “Feel free to tell me about yourself, while you wait.”

“Are you this intimate with everyone who makes the climb?” The enchantress answers, while whatever fraction of her brain responsible for appropriate social interaction screams at her.

“Not regularly, unless they’re dying and it calls for a longer stay.” It all really feels like jingle bells to her ears. “But you’ve one of the most... _eye_ - _catching_ motivations to come here I’ve seen in some time. They don’t usually go beyond despair and wanting a miracle cure that can’t be found otherwise.” Deeper bells. “I don’t mind healing them, of course—All life is precious. But when someone arrives with a story like yours... It entertains me, I can’t lie!”

Hearing that tugs the corners of Lulu’s lips into an exhausted smile.

“I’m Lulu. Pleased to meet you,” she says, repeating the script the soldiers gave her for self-introduction verbatim.

“I was banished from my city, and now I travel this world.” This was a new variation she had mentally written herself. She omits the extra fragment, _I know a bit about healing wounded and sick, if you need help,_ that she usually adds to try and convince whoever to not tell her to scram.

“Pleased to meet you,” Soraka echoes. “What do you know about healing?”

“I started learning before my banishment,” she answers, voice flat. “I still don’t know as much as I wish I did. Patching up simple wounds, keeping them clean, some home potions... um... Spells, but for small injuries, light maladies... People don’t want such a mediocre healer.”

“Is it about others’ approval?” Lulu’s nostrils swell with the aroma of warm broth, and her entire body tingles with anticipation.

“It’s about not feeling like I’m worthless anymore.” That seems too dark by itself, and so she quickly drafts and blurts out an addition. “And I _like_ healing. I like making lives happy. Making them forget pain, for a bit. It feeds me, but not the belly, no... more like, the innards, really deep in, the spirit...” _You don’t know what you’re talking about, just shut it._

“If I want to stop being useless... I’d like for it to be like this.”

_Oh, gods damn it, Lu._

The beat of hooves on stone preludes a hilariously big bowl and spoon being placed before her in an equally hilariously sized wooden board for support. She resists the urge to laugh at how awkward this all is, and at herself for being the catalyst for this oneiric scenario.

“Here you go. Enjoy,” Soraka says, sitting to her left in a comfortable-looking light chair, her long goat legs crossed with unfaltering grace. What a beautiful woman.

Lulu has to grasp the spoon with her entire hand balled to a fist and sip the broth off a side. It’s so delicious, she feels like she’s being fed some elixir of life. Maybe she’s just famished. The root cause isn’t relevant—Her eyes flutter with delight. “It’s amazing,” she mutters.

Soraka’s smile could light up the entirety of Runeterra. “I’m glad,” she says.

The enchantress stares at her with big, sparkly, inquisitive eyes. Internally, she high-fives herself when it draws the intended response.

“Healing is an art, a craft, and a science all in one,” the Starchild explains. “It needs a lot of empathy, a lot of digging into your softest corners. It involves seeing things outside of bodies that should never be outside of them. And if you want to be a great healer, one who can serve without summoning the stars themselves... It calls for discipline. One can be kind, but firm. You are kind. I see how your eyes glow... but I need you to bare your heart to me, prove you’re willing to give it all due study and sweat. Do you agree to this?”

Much as she wants to hide the burning in her pupils, Lulu knows she can’t. She knows they are lit in fireworks just at the fact she didn’t immediately coax her to walk her way back. She nods. One time. One tilt down, and then back up.

“Then, I will test you on what you know. Don’t worry, I won’t be unfair— I detest unfairness. What I need to know is your will to learn. Your resolve is exciting to me, but I can’t just leap into emotion. You will prepare to be a healer apprentice. But for now,” she waves to the bowl, the spoon Lulu was holding in midair all statue-esque. “Eat and sleep. A healer needs to keep themselves in check, so they will have a clear heart and mind to help others.”

She stands with such elegance Lulu feels like she’s permanently performing for an audience of one—The sky itself. “I will let you recover, and prepare you suitable quarters. You will stay here for a few days, and the armchair doesn’t feel quite right.” She flashes her a playful smile, and so Lulu’s left alone with Pix—who of course, gets an offer for a spoonful of broth— and the bubbles swirling in the bowl, shimmering with light from a newborn day.


	2. II. Adagio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack Selection: Le Tombeau de Couperin - III. Forlane — composed by Maurice Ravel

“Lulu, rise! We have an emergency!”

Though her eyelids flutter open, it happens like they carry the weight of a boulder. Slow, creaky. Her quarters are lit only by Soraka’s oil lamp, dawn does not seem to break just yet. _Must have been quite the emergency if she’s roused outside of God Sun’s course, alright._

Pix stirs in her nape, disturbed by her slow rise from the bed; the world blurs for an instant as she moves, her whole spirit seduced by her bed and pillow. She whimpers when the fey bug accidentally pulls a strand of purple or two as he makes his way out from beneath her hair, fluttering lazily beside her.

“Whaddizzit?” She slurs, dreamland only just yielding to reality. Soraka looks almost unreal under the lamplight, much too huge, the massive size of their Rakkor home still leaving rather scarce space between horn-tip and roof. Lulu feels like a lost child, a sensation she’s equal parts familiar with and disturbed by.

“Lunari,” the starchild mutters, crouching to be more at the her eye level. “Lunari and a yordle.”

_Oh no._

“Lunari?” She drags, small feet pitter-pattering around the room, gathering her healer’s garb and hair bands to tame her mane, a habit Soraka struggled to get her used to. The word sounds like a riddle of sorts in this state of half-consciousness. Soraka’s lamp paints long, blurred shadows all over her quarters; everything feels liminal. “Bold of ‘em to get ‘round here.” Brave. Her own voice feels muffled in her ears, nonsensical.

“I wouldn’t wake you if it was only them.” Soraka’s hooves make a pleasant noise, her strides far more spacious than what Lulu’s little legs can manage as she follows her and helps her gather her belongings. Green eyes are staring miles away, at something on some other plane, and the starchild wraps a hand around her shoulder, a hand so big it nearly goes three quarters through her clavicles, spinning her so they face each other and making her feel all the more fake and defenseless. “Please focus, sweetie. Lunari _and a yordle._ You’re best suited to watch for the latter, don’t you agree?

Lulu agrees. Dread neurotransmitters are just starting to truly tickle her receptors.

 _Bad. Bad._ This is bad. She hasn’t bothered to deliberately find any kin since she left, avoiding them like she would direwolves or human Hunters. The words of her own promise rite with Soraka, protecting all life no matter how precious she thinks it, ring in her ears, deafening, and the long shadow her horn casts down her nose bridge makes her fear the stars—

“Lemme pee and I’ll be there,” the sorceress drones.

Soraka nods frantically. “Hurry. And don’t forget to bind your hair.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

The way her eyes see darkness does not favor her concentration, though adrenaline’s done a decent job of springing her into consciousness. Her hands tremble, fighting their way through tying her generous curls in a tight bun. They are moist with the alcohol herbs and soaps she uses to disinfect her hands; the silk lace slips between her anxious fingers, frustrating her.

At least she doesn’t have to face this situation while nearly pissing herself, she argues against her own anxiety.

“Who do you think that could be?” She tells her familiar. He’s nestled beneath the cloth she uses to wrap her hairdo under, as taught by her master. “Gods, I really hope it’s not—“ Pix jumps up in a burst of fuchsia sparkles. She sometimes forgets he can read her feelings through and through, and now he’s grumpy and everything’s worse. He flutters around her hace, irritatedly chirping in Fae. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. I’m just scared. I know it probably isn’t one of them.”

He settles on her shoulder, taking Serious Position, ready to assist her. “You seem almost eager to go...”

He looks into her with eyes she can’t fully understand for once, and she scrunches her nose up. “Stop staring at me like that! I’m still gonna do it, I swore before the gods I would.”

She steps out of the restroom, heading to the ruckus her ears track at the living room. Soraka’s pulled the dinner table cloth off, resting a human atop, his blood leaking over its edge and dripping on the floor. Drip, drip. The iron of blood remains so invasive her time of actual practice has not fully accustomed her; thick saliva pools in her mouth as she fights the usual nausea. The goat woman is stagnating his bleeding; he does not scream; muted gurgles crawl out of his mouth.

“This is my apprentice, Lulu,” she says towards the other ruckus, in pure Rakkor. “She is kin of your man. She will know how to treat him.” She points her eyes to the witch, prompts her to a hyperactive shadow in Lunari arms who wriggles in a desperate brawl for freedom; his efforts fall flat against the beef of human arms. The two who hold it sport Lunari face paint; it already runs down their faces, smeared down by sweat.

The shadow lets a distinctly yordle-y snarl, and the flip of Lulu’s stomach re-grounds her, shattering her fixation with the small, squirming thing. The sorceress sprints the way across the living room to them. She now understands why the shadow was particularly indistinguishable— male yordle, pure black fur, and dressed in black to boot. Bloodied, needle-sharp fangs break his seamless silhouette as he opens his maw to growl and spit out curses. _Dang, we’re angry._

“What happened here?” She asks, trying to recall, and keep frontmost, the list of bullet points Soraka has instructed her to cover when receiving a new patient.

“Our golden child Aphelios spotted an intruder he believed to be a Solari infiltrator and went for the kill,” one of the two explains, voice quaking from the constant motion of keeping the yordle up. “He was not a Solari infiltrator. He ordered the stars themselves around and hit back fast and hard. Aphelios is now with your master. This man didn’t want any help, or any healing, though Phel is ruthless and got a good beating on him. We refused to let him die, seeing how he’s not our enemy, and now we’re here. This was the closest village nearby, and you, the closest healers within.”

“Alright,” Lulu replies, barely getting all that through her skull amidst the chaos. “Follow me, I need to lay him down and check his wounds. What weaponry does your Aphelios use for battle? Do you know what he could have been hit with? Do you know anything about this man?”

She guides the three to her own quarters, figuring the shadow-yordle-man to want a bed more fitting of his size while mentally recording all intel. Aphelios is a Lunari assassin and has five weapons, mostly projectile-based. The inner mechanics of it all are complicated and Lulu cares more about the results—the man’s left leg wobbles like jelly under the strain of his struggling and weight; something’s definitely broken in there. She has Pix summon her decent lighting, the little sprite floating around her bedding and shelves and placing pastel light spheres strategically: her eyes now see he’s caked in blood, his robe’s fabric stiffening with its congealing. She inhales sharp, in her own palms, holding her nausea down. “Place him on the bed and restrain him,” she commands, whistling for Pix to grab her a rag in their own coded language.

The yordle’s forcefully pinned down on the bed, but uses the newfound surface as momentum to propel himself off the humans’ hold; His lower leg bends awkwardly with a wet noise, and Lulu subtly retches as he screams in pain. The inside of his mouth is just as coated red, strands of thick bloodied drool stretch thin as he hollers. That stunt probably worsened the leg situation, overall—and _that_ , Lulu can’t allow.

She paces the way to her bed dominantly, rips the bedsheet off with an angrily graceful arc, earning her a glare from the two gold orbs that were the man’s eyes all along. They shine like suns in the vastness of space, and their unexpected allure throws her off for a split second.

Pix flutters to her right, placing a clean, neatly folded cloth on her shoulder, and she takes it as if on cue, hops on her knees atop her mattress and cups his face with her right hand, internally disgusted at how the light cotton immediately dyes red. The man growls in her hold, baring pearly whites at her, pupils narrowed to furious slits; it almost feels like his eyeballs spit fire at her. It’s been about five minutes, at most, and she’s had her fill of this foolish violence.

“Alright, handsome,” she hisses, digging into gold with green, fighting fire with fire. “Look at what you did to your clearly broken leg. I’m just about done with your tantrum, okay?” She squeezes him harder, secretly delighted at the way his eyes widen in surprise. “I need to patch you up. Thus, it’s nap time.” Her left index nail digs into the thick dark fur of his forehead, shoots a beam, and he falls without warning, his face slipping from her right hand.

The expression of barely bridled rage has now simmered into serenity so profound she resists the urge to giggle at it. _What a ridiculous little man._

“Woah,” says one of the humans.

“Please leave me with him,” she answers, back to her collected, carefully constructed healer voice. “I have to examine the extent his wounds, and for that I ought to disrobe him. I still want to let him keep his dignity.”

The two humans nod, smirking at her, and she smiles back. “Go check on your Aphelios. We will be fine.” She steps down from her bed, shooing the humans off with a wave of her hands.

She whistles for Pix to grab her first aid kit and spare hair laces, arranging his inert body gingerly so he rests comfortably meanwhile, and her first step is to bind his left wrist to the bedside with hair laces, in case he wakes up and gets rowdy. He’s slim, toned, from what she can tell; his forearms are littered with scars, they paint constellations on the dark heaven of his fur. _How much have you hurt? This is not the first time you’re trapped under a healer’s mercy, is it?_ She lightly taps his chest through the robe, then her temple with the opposite hand—his heartbeat’s still untamed from the fighting, but far from the erratic pulses of near-death.

Pix places the box— a present from Soraka the day they climbed down the mount and to the Rakkor populace nearest to its base, intending for her to start actual practice— beside her. She strokes its lid for reassurance, inhaling slowly. Something bitter pinches the back of her throat, perhaps pity, perhaps secondhand pain, perhaps simple, tingly anxiety at being so close to kin for the first time in gods know how long. Her fingers hesitate when undoing his dark robe and splitting it open. Rusty puddles show her where wounds lie beneath his sleeveless silk jumpsuit.

She grabs for the shears in her box, clicking them a time or two and revelling on their metallic noises before starting. She’s unwilling to manhandle him to strip him, fearing for his leg; the onesie will just have to accept its end. Walking around him, she aligns the shears’ edge to the neck hole and cuts the top through in one swift motion, the silk giving in like butter; she peels the first half away, uncovering his chest like she would a fruit. More scars, drawing patterns on his torso; the ends of his rib cage poke two hard edges, his belly flat, a hint of muscle beneath. He mustn’t have food too reliably. Dark fur, like a current, flows to the center of his chest, where it pools in a dark, fluffier tuft; it in turn flows down into a trail that vanishes beneath his waistband.

Lulu’s face unwittingly flushes with embarrassment; it appears today is just the day she’s supposed to feel like some flustered, confused cub all the way through. Something about him being kin gives her discomfort with her stripping, makes her depersonalization from him harder to achieve, harder to reduce this man to just a body like any other. She swallows, blinking a couple times. A few cuts, two or three probably need actual stitching; the rest are just due for disinfection and bandaging. His free right wrist appears more swollen than his left; there’s probably a sprain going on. _That will need bandaging too._ She should probably clean the fur off blood so there will be no contamination. She shudders at the prospect of having to wipe-bath him, shuffles the thought out of her mind for now. _Just a body_ , she repeats to herself in whispers, like a madwoman. _Just a body from your species. A bloody beaten body, to boot. Get real._

She nods, reassuring herself, before doing second and third cuts to the leg sleeves and pulling them open suit. The broken leg will definitely make the brunt of her work; it’s twisted to a weird angle, blood leaks through; wise of her to put him to sleep to rearrange the bones. She’d need clay for the cast, but it’s an open fracture; injuries should probably dry up first, she supposes wooden planks and bandaging will have to do for now. His opposite thigh sports a nasty gash that demands suturing, deep and stretching beneath the leftover fabric. _Poor man, he’ll take a while to walk again without suffering._ Past wounds litter his entire form, she concludes; ankles split with lines, a few more strokes breaking the flow of dark fur on his thighs and calves... What a shame; the fracture will probably add to his growing collection.

She prioritizes her procedures; the thigh injury will probably be second to the broken bone, probably succeeded by the wrist issue... she’s got to inspect the full extension of that cut.

She splits the final strip of fabric, cutting the jumpsuit’s waistband, and is already fetching for the final stretch of silk when her eyes note the small poke of his sex on the fabric and she retracts like she touched red-hot iron, turning away to compose herself, burning with shame. “Oh gods,” she whispers at nothing, “I can’t do it.”

Pix urges her with angry chirps, embarrassing her further. She’s acting like a child, aware of it, and yet can’t stop—

“No, I don’t know how to— I’ve never treated a yordle _like this_. Oh gods, I—“ she shuts her eyes, hopping in place, trying to wear the embarrassment off, the heat burning on every follicle. “ _Oh, Sun and Moon..._ ” she wriggles her wrists, and then her familiar is in on her face, bothering her with his wiry arms and fluttery wings, screaming in Fae about how he’ll die and is losing blood and it makes her panic in two directions now.

“I know I have to, but I mean—“ he leaves no room for counter-arguing, his frantic nagging escalating and angering her.

“Ugh, okay!” She hisses, landing a firm stomp on the floor; vigorously spins on her heels to her patient, pulling the silk off, her pupils widening and contracting in shock just after. Her jaw tightens to a painful degree as she slowly lifts his thigh, trying to ignore the eyeful of penis, and sees the wound traces around his thigh and upwards nearly to the edge of his buttock.

“That was informational!” She scream-whispers at herself through grit teeth. “We will have to clean that and not touch anything we shouldn’t! But the other leg first!” She grabs the herbal alcohol and orders Pix around for the wooden planks, pulling the fabric back over so she can, at least, focus enough for the delicate task of rearranging his skeleton. She and Soraka went over this with inanimate simulations, and she’s had a kid or two who did mischief and paid the price for practice, yet all of this is new without any supervision, and she’s already got more than enough anxiety without yordle manhood on her mind.

“Fetch me cloth to stop that cut’s bleeding, too,” she commands her familiar, cleaning the milder wounds with the rag she’d already used, not wishing blood clots on his fur. She dabs the cloth in alcohol and scrubs all dry scabs away; once Pix has secured her enough spare cloth, two wooden boards plus bandages, some more alcohol and a pail of fresh water, she halts the hemorrhage on his thigh until she can stitch and gets to work on his shin, straightening the bones with some nasty sounding cracks, washing, disinfecting and plastering all open wounds, and holding the two wood pieces to his lower leg with a meticulous bandage tie she practiced with Soraka for days on end.

She ends up gently turning him on his left side to treat his thigh, seizing the fact his fracture’s secured and patched to avoid more distracting privates; taking the opportunity to evaluate his backside for any injuries—none that are particularly severe, much to her relief—

An eye-catching scar peeks from his nape, drawing her attention, and her fingers spread the fur there for a closer look.

Her head spins as she distinguishes a mark she knows much too well from her own skin, her own figure in mirrors.

_You’ve gone through a lot of pain, haven’t you?_

_They don’t want you either, do they?_

Her index fingertip slowly dances through the path of his mark of banishment, brain flooded with memories so overwhelming they almost knock her over; were it not for the smell of gore grounding her, she would’ve probably drifted elsewhere. The mark and her fingers deform in a blur, and she blinks the tears off her eyes, urged to concentrate.

_What a ridiculous little man..._

_What a hurt little man._

* * *

By the time she’s placed the very last plaster and released his tied wrist, her room looks like some crime scene; the asphyxiating quiet of the night’s been replaced by birdsong, and her small light orbs become increasingly unnecessary. She puts him to rest on his back, covers his naked body with her bedsheets, and now can’t help but watch him sleep. It’s been so long since she saw a male of her kind up close; curiosity and yearning fill her, the instinctual species urge to cuddle up to him and feel his warmth and revel in the closeness of her own blood, a base need banishment has staunchly deprived her from meeting. Judging by how he was when awake, her civilized side knows he’s probably far from a proper partner for that; but yordles remain animal, and every cell in her body begs her to fill the primal temptation of nuzzling him.

Lulu, fortunately, has lived enough social humiliation to master self control necessary to just let her body scream, watching his chest rise and fall with every slow breath, mind racing with a million theories on this guy and the dozens of stories branded on his skin. His face has already been creased with the grooves of near-constant scowling, and even now, while he sleeps, while he looks so serene and defenseless, she can distinguish them. It makes her miserable.

His face is rather attractive, in a strange way she can’t pinpoint; his fur surprisingly neat in whatever small space the blood hadn’t tainted, silky and fluffy and shiny. His ears are long, and it only makes him accidentally cuter; it pulls at the corners of her lips.

 _Well, he’s banished, too_. Perhaps she can earn his trust through healing, and maybe she’ll finally have someone to talk to, to entertain her, ease her yordle starvation, to speak to without craning her neck up too much. Every fiber of her meat hurts with craving, churning with desperate loneliness, and her face scrunches. She dislikes feeling such tenderness for a hurt man she doesn’t know and amidst all the gory mess left over from her work, littering her quarters.

 _You can always annoy him with the fact you’ve seen all there is to see of him,_ she tells herself, and she smiles in equal parts mischief and embarrassment.

Pix flutters beside her, staring daggers into her—soft daggers. Foam daggers. He could never stare metal daggers.

“He’s got some hours left of sleep,” she mumbles at her companion. “Can’t you let me fantasize about a handsome male of my kin for a few hours?”

Her imagination’s filling her with pleasant tingles, and she’s not about to give that up. Her lips tickle with static as she details his face even further. His eyelashes and his little button nose, dark as coal, and the gash in his ear and the currents his fur flows in.

“Oh no, I know he is only a patient. I won’t befriend him, I’m just making a nice picture for my dreams.” She does a couple dismissive waves at her Fae friend. “I’m only watching him, don’t worry. I need a good image, is all.” Her mind would fill out the rest. It would fill out his voice and his actions, so she could hold onto this painting after she’d dispatched him. He didn’t even have to know. He would never know. She would just plaster this cute face in an imaginary friend. Probably get rid of the scars for the one that would chat with her in her fantasies, feeding an emotional meal she could never afford in reality.

“I’ll stop and go to sleep soon. I promise.” Indeed, fatigue wears down on her. She’ll probably skip lunch just to nap on the living room. Or Soraka’s room, if the Lunari are still there. Or wherever. She didn’t exactly have trouble picking nap spots.  
  


She’s already dozing off in her chair when Soraka flutters the bead curtain open, startling her.

“Oh, stars, how grisly,” her teacher says, smiling. Lulu only realizes how pitiful she must look how, sticky with sweat and sporting eye bags and probably pale from hunger and overwork. The sprout of a migraine from hours of bearing the pressure of her hairdo is blooming on the back of her head. “How is he?”

“Stable condition,” the enchantress says, tired, but proud inside. “Already cleaned him up and discarded his lost clothes. I’ll have to wash his robe, it survived rather well.” She smiles at her master lazily. “He should be up by this afternoon. I checked his vitals a couple times and he’s good. Can you help me get some new clothes for him?”

“Congratulations,” is what Soraka answers. That word makes Lulu’s heart burst in light and butterflies and cinnamon. “You did well. I can watch over cleaning this mess up and his clothing if you need sleep. The Lunari already took the Aphelios human, they left as soon as he was stable. A healer of theirs will watch over him.”

Lulu nods in agreement, blinking slowly. Lunari mercy only went so far as making sure folk didn’t die, apparently.

“You can nap in the living room, or in my bed,” she adds, drawing a grateful smile from the sorceress. “You deserve rest. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Raka,” she manages in a whimper. She wants to cry. Her throat tightens, and she gives her a bow of respect, standing up and clumsily making her way outside while undoing her hair. She lands on whatever soft surface she can find—a few cushions for lounging on the floor by the dinner table do just fine. She curls into a relieved ball, sinking into them.

The starchild steps by her, draping one of her spare bedsheets over her. “I’ll wake you in a few hours so you can check on him,” she says, and even though it’s instruction, it sounds like a lullaby. “Seeing how he’s your kin, and you did so well, and I have many others to look over... You’ll do fine on your own. Take over this one for me, and show me how fit you are as a healer, okay?”

Lulu can sparsely manage a second nod as dreamland swallows her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the end of papaveraceae has been super hard so here’s this meanwhile


	3. III. Concerto for Mr. Pissoff and Healer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack Selection: Black — Ken Nordine

  
In the end, Soraka won’t need to rouse her. She awakens spurred by hunger. The Starchild, always considerate, has left her an easily accessible, served dish, that she eats rather messily trying to ward exhaustion off. She eyes the kitchen clock, estimating when the sleep spell will wear off— An hour, more or less, maybe two; she cast it in the heat of the moment, not pondering finer details. Late for lunch, early for work. _Two misses in one._

She’s stood atop a folding ladder they’ve set for her convenience— reaching things in a human-sized house makes it an essential for yordles residing outside their colonies— thoroughly scrubbing leftover gravy off the plate with a luffa when she hears her master step inside, pacing her way to the kitchen; they’ve spotted each other simultaneously. They greet each other with the brief bow customary of the Rakkor. Soraka’s sporting a devious, flustered smile as she rests a woven basket by Lulu, atop the stone counter. 

“I’ve a hunch your guest won’t be too happy about his outfit,” she says, her smirk twisting into pursed lips. “Your ilk, they don’t really make us outsiders have an easy time finding them.”

Lulu smiles and nods. “You didn’t find a single one?”

“No. No one below four feet tall,” she answers, accompanying it with a head shake, her snowy braid undulating gracefully with it. “Nor any entrances to a possible colony, and that’s with me being able to look through your magic!” she chuckles. 

“I can’t blame them,” the sorceress answers with a shrug. “You’re like five of me stacked on each other. Were I to see you in the wild without knowing who you are, I would fear for my vertebrae. And they’re all such scaredy-cats. Even worse than I.” 

“But you know what that means.”

“Yeah.” Lulu glances to the basket. “But you still found a solution.” 

“I did. I worry about how undignified he’ll think it is. There is _one_ human group, after all, sized under four feet... We have no time to get a tailor to sew something, or the gold to lend him the cost, so, relying on Rakkor solidarity... Well...” Soraka lifts the lid off the basket. An applique of a sun in yellow satin, sporting a smiling face, peeks atop a bundle of cream cotton. 

“Oh gods.” 

“I know.” Soraka tries to remain stoic, but it’s rapidly falling apart. “My best guess is to leave it up to him if he’d just rather be nude than wear this. Fortunately, these clothes are also very breathable and soft, because human children need delicate fabric...” 

“If he has any semblance of maturity he’ll take them. He shouldn’t feel degraded by some kid’s robes. The kin knows this can happen while outside. He should be above that pretentious tomfoolery.” Her mind flashes back to Poppy’s story of wearing human children’s garb while journeying with Orlon’s caravan. There was nothing else for her to wear, so she bowed her head and took it. She got used to it eventually, she’d finished, voice wet with mild drunkenness. She’d chugged Tristana’s laughter down with honey mead. 

Soraka nods, accepting. “Be sure to deliver him these. My afternoon is booked, and I trust you full authority over him. Take it as a trial of sorts.” She covers the basket again. “I only came to hand them to you before opening our place up.” She lands a final pat on the woven reed and bows in farewell. 

* * *

Lulu’s left with about half an hour of freedom, says the clock. She entertains ideas in her head, much as her brain already knows exactly what it wants to do; the pull of curiosity to check on Sleeping Handsome is too strong, all that reins it, the fear of appearing a creep. _Would he be unsettled at having a healer by his side when he wakes up?_ All his thrashing on arrival hints yes. Still, she’s with him in mere seconds.

The architecture of their abode takes as much advantage of sunlight as it can—Rather expected of the Solari. It sprinkles his dark fur with golden glitter, and Lulu’s mesmerized in a heartbeat; lulled by the instinctual response to nearby kin. She walks to him like she would on glass; tiptoes delicately, not wanting to cut his slumber short. She can sense Pix stir from his own nap underneath one of her hats and peek, eyeing her with apparent suspicion. _Let me be_ , she thinks in his direction. 

She clenches the hem of her healer garb, holding onto something tangible to resist brushing her fingertips through his fur; something begs her to comb it, groom the anarchic little stray hairs to a proper direction. He breathes light, even; the gentle up-and-down of his chest simmers her. His face, marked forever with trails of suffering and anger and disillusion, shows no turmoil as he sleeps. She paints pictures in her head again almost without meaning to; what’s made him so distraught, so full of rusty red? dramas and tragedies write and rewrite on imaginary parchment behind her eyelids. _Such a waste of a perfectly good face, methinks..._

Then his brow crinkles, and he inhales deeply, and the warm golden peace of her imagination shatters, replaced by saturated teal panic. She nearly trips as she scrambles her way on her heels, tumbling out of the room in a rush as he lets a low, raspy moan out. She had not realized how bad instinctual cravings could get when starved for months; so that some stranger yordle could hypnotize her. The beads of the curtain still rattle with inertia when he groans a pained complaint. For the length of one heartbeat, thousands of potential personalities flash before her eyes. _What is he really like?_

When she walks to him again, after putting on her best patient service smile and readying her posture for maximum trustworthy image, he’s already frowning. Shame.

“Good afternoon, sunshine,” she greets all casual, like she didn’t just sprint out of the room. “How are you?”

“Been better,” he says. Deadpan. Lime green bitter. “Been not beaten to pulp around some random yordle. Woke up to better sights. Who are you, why am I here. Go on.” 

Lulu feels like a wooden stake’s been freshly stabbed on the tender meat of her side abdominal muscles. Fortunately, she’s accustomed to this sensation. Unfortunately, he was far more pleasant when he was asleep. Fortunately again, she’s had plenty of practice with verbal citric acid shot to her metaphorical eyeballs.

“Ah, I see you’re fun at parties,” she answers, dropping the persona to match him. “Your healer, ‘cause you arrived half bled to death. Let’s jump to medical history, since you’re such a no-nonsense type, shall we?” 

She flashes Pix a practiced whistle, and a notepad and charcoal pencil are in her hands soon after. She notices the yordle double-taking as he eyes her familiar. “Is that a—” 

“A good neighbor himself,” she says, cutting him mid-sentence. That appears to irritate him; his frown deepens, and she both hurts inside at the way his angry-wrinkles exacerbate and is greatly amused at his annoyance. “What’s your name?” 

“Piss off,” he growls, flopping back on the pillow. Lulu sees him struggle with the jolt of pain it shoots through his injured body. 

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Alright, Mr. Pissoff. Wait, is that the right honorific? Should I use Sir Pissoff, perhaps? Pissoff M.D.?” He bares his teeth at her, his pupils narrowing, and she pumps her chest out in delight at gaining such a radical upper hand over him. He clearly seems taken aback. “What time does Mr. Pissoff, M.D. want his meals scheduled? Should I also prescribe treatment under the Pissoff namesake?” 

He inhales through his nose. Deep. “Veigar,” he says, running his bandaged hand through his face, then examining the fact it’s bandaged. 

“Pardon?” 

“Name’s Veigar.” He side-eyes her. His eyes are big and bright and gold and they glimmer in the sunlight; they’re also the darkest eyes she’s had aimed at her in a decent while. 

“Shame.” She refuses to give him even a crumb of power over her, pants-shitting as that gaze is. “Pissoff was a great name.” 

He laughs, sour, defeated by her. It makes her reel. “I don’t eat at any set times of the day. Just don’t put milk and sugar in my coffee. The rest, I don’t care.” 

“You look the not-eating part,” she says, earning herself another glare. “Oh, no milk and sugar, I’m glad to know you have no soul this early on.” That actually gets him to chuckle for real, which pleases her. 

“Got that spot on,” he says, half-heartedly; Lulu notices pain’s finally handing his ass back to him as the drowsy spell finishes wearing off. His face tenses in self-control. “I wanna take a leak. Where’s the restroom?” 

“Maybe you don’t wanna,” is her answer. “What’s your dominant hand, Mr. Pisso—I mean, Mr. Veigar?” She doesn’t intend to exploit this little weak spot much longer, but one last jab can’t hurt. 

“Right,” he says, letting it slide.

“Bandaged. You’ve got some ligament damage there.”

“I noticed.” He glances down at it, seemingly more aware the soreness in his wrist. 

“Can you aim with your left? You’re gonna need a gunner help point the cannon otherwise.”

The way he’s looking at her is priceless. “No. You’re not doing that.” 

“You also have a broken leg. Pretty grisly. You’ll go through hell itself if you walk yourself to the restroom like that.” 

“Silence.” 

“Aw, why so distraught? I’m a healer. I already saw it when I was patching you up.” She conveniently skips over her embarrassment.

He winces. She smirks at him, narrowing her eyes. 

“ _Stop_.” 

“Don’t like your healer acting smug, Mr. Veigar? I’m afraid that’s what happens when you’re all high-and-mighty with someone holding your fate in her hands. We can get along, you know. But that’s going to take a bit less daggers from your side.” 

He sighs, tightening his lips. She can tell he’s aware he’s at her mercy. He runs his hand down his face once more— squinting at the pain this time around. “Alright. I got it. You’re a feisty girl. Should’ve called it from a Fey connoisseur. Now, can you dignify me with a vessel to piss in, please?” 

“With pleasure.” She sets her notes down nonchalantly on the small night table. “Wait here, I’ll bring you a basin. I’m not gonna have you walk around with a leg like that. I’m feisty, not merciless. That, and you’re butt-naked, if you analyze yourself for a minute.” She dusts her robes glamorously, pacing to the hallway. She’ll fill him in about the clothes later. 

“By the way,” she adds, peeking from the doorway, “my name is Lulu, pleased to meet you, you’re welcome for saving you. Better dig that name in your noggin, since we’re gonna be hanging out for a while.” She rustles the bead curtain, beaming in pride for once, as she paces to the crates and shelves she and Soraka store supplies in. 

* * *

“Here comes the airplane,” she says. She’s garnered herself a wide array of nasty looks after he finally gave up on eating with his left _and_ eating through the pain in his right. He bites on the spoon as he swallows the last bite; Lulu feels the strength of his jaw on the waxed wood. He does so much too dramatically, his fighting spirit defeated several spoonfuls ago. 

“Good boy,” she says, putting the bowl down near her feet. 

“Glad that’s done for,” he answers dully, landing on the pillow she’s now fluffed up for his comfort. He closes his eyes, breathing slowly. She can’t blame him—Pain is tiring, she’s learned. 

“Hope it was tasty.” 

“Don’t ever do that again.” 

“Aw, don’t be such a grump.” 

“I’ll spit the soup to your face.” He half-opens one eye, stabbing her with his pupil. 

Luckily, Lulu standards disregard self-preservation. _No one who cares about dying would have climbed a third through Targon pushed by legend alone._ “I’d love to see you try.” 

He blinks a couple times, taken off-guard by her disdain. _How used is he to intimidating random folk?_ “You don’t really act the healer type.” 

“I’m _not_ the ‘healer type’. You seem to have taken to the uncooperative patient role snugly, though.” He rolls his eyes. “You look so bothered. Are you used to scaring healers into submission? How do you do that? What self-respecting sapient is frightened of your cute face?” 

He laughs. It’s sarcastic, fake; more a cough than a laugh. “How daft are you? You really don’t know who you’re healing, do you?” 

No, not at all. _Is this black cat really so important?_ _He’s acting too much like a brat to look the part._ “No, I don’t. What kind of eminence are you that I have no idea who you are? What kind of fool am I that I ripped you off the Kindred’s grip as you were about to leave this world? Maybe you should check your perception of things.” 

He bares his teeth; the creases amid his brows deepen further. Lulu probably shouldn’t be this entertained by deflating his ego. Probably. Her course of action doesn’t always follow what common sense dictates. Should and Should Not aren’t big factors in her decision making. _In retrospective that’s likely what got you banned from Bandle,_ she muses, and her mind is already veering on that tangent when Healer Lulu intervenes and makes her notice Veigar’s mildly puzzled expression at her sudden thousand-yard stare. 

“Sorry, I was thinking.” She clears her throat, tucking a stray purple curl behind her ear. “I know it doesn’t appear like I do to your megalomania, but I use my brain. Who could’ve guessed?” 

“You’re such a Fey-touched,” he answers, cocking his head. “I don’t know how much I like the idea of a Fair healer. Unpredictability and mercy don’t add up, in my opinion.” 

“And yet here I am. Good Folk acting as they please without regard on expectations, as they do.” 

“You’re bold for someone who looks so easy to snap.” 

“Do I look it? Do you want to snap me?” she raises an eyebrow, leaning forward defiantly. 

“Aren’t you afraid of asking that? Don’t you fear death? What’s telling you I won’t kill you once you’re done with curing me?” He crosses his fingers, places his hands onto his lap. His face is devious, confident. The face of a businessman negotiating, a master manipulator playing his mind games. How good he is at getting that across— He _can_ look intimidating when he feels like it. Too bad she’s been long dying inside, dulled to fear and danger and hope.

“No. I’ll only rot and become soil. Maybe grow cute flowers on my bones. Maybe feed some random beast with my remains. Whichever will be more noble than what I’ve done while alive.” 

His eyes soften. Pupils widen, reek pastel yellow curiosity. She dislikes this outcome. It’s just giving him advantage, little cracks he’ll want to inspect. She avoids that prying stare, looking at the floor, the walls, anything but those eyes. His voice booms in her skull like singing on an Ionian temple. “Interesting.” He, too, leans forward, almost as if it will let him look at her innards or something. He’s got impressive stare-power. 

Pix shuffles underneath the hat he’s chosen to curl up in after his assistance wasn’t needed. Veigar’s eyes dart to the wriggly hat, then back at her. “Why do you have one of Them assisting you? They don’t do that.” 

“Reasons.” She shrugs. The hair in her neck stands up, body responding automatically to the proximity of genetically compatible flesh. “You really don't know who’s healing you, do you?” 

“Good one.” He chuckles. “I underrated you too early. I hope me eating your soup doesn’t have me forever enslaved to you or something.” 

She giggles at that, and hates that she does. “It’s not like that. I’m just favored by Them, I can’t deal with mortals in Their terms.” She bites her tongue just as she’s about to open the tap on information on her surrogate family. “But that’s nothing for you to know. Why would you listen to a dunce, anyway?” 

He shakes his head dismissively, and it’s all the admission of guilt she needs. It makes pride pump through her veins. 

“What are you even doing in Targon? Outside any colony? _With the Lunari?_ ” She whispers that last bit, the walls suddenly growing eyes and ears in her perception. 

“Reasons,” he answers, refusing to fully give up his dominance. “I may as well send the first two outta three questions back your way.” He points at her, acting his verbal ricochet. “But you’ve clued me in you working with the Good Folk, so, eye for an eye. I work with the stars and planets up above. Add the pieces up yourself, since you’re clearly less stupid than you look.” 

_Yeah, that makes a lot of sense._ She can only shrug back in compliance. 

“You said we’re gonna be hanging out a lot. So who knows. Maybe you can earn yourself other tidbits of me. Maybe I can earn tidbits of you. Maybe that way I’ll be less bored to death about having to be around another goddamn cat.” 

Her mind juts down his disregard for yordles as a species. For an instant, she wonders if he too feels that dreadful pull, then hates pondering it; inadvertently winces. He notices, but his reaction skips her carefully garnered encyclopedia of emotions, and she can’t tell what his face means. 

“I can lend you books,” she says, cause she doesn’t want to think about it any longer. 

“Sounds fine.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay.” 

The silence squishes her like a haystack. She loses herself in the decor of her own room so she doesn’t have to acknowledge he’s there. Notes the time on the clock. Maybe she should check the status of his wounds. She doesn’t want to. Maybe that can wait a bit more. She skims over a list of house chores seeking anything else she can occupy herself with. Anything outside her bedroom, her supposed safe haven, now cursed by this Veigar. 

A spark of light glints in her brain. “I’ve got to mend your robe. I’ll leave you to rest. Be back in a while for a checkup.” 

She leaves before he can even reply. Pix follows suit, landing on her shoulder. Lulu knows he can perceive the fine cocktail stirred inside her. Three parts embarrassment. One part curiosity. Two parts intrigue. Sprinkle lighlty with nervousness, close and shake. If she had any doubts left about it, the way he looks at her puts them to rest. 

“Shut up. I’m not in the mood for games.”

Fey, however, are always in the mood for games. 

“You’re so insufferable sometimes.” She can’t help but smile weakly as she tries to shove him away and he buzzes around her, giggling like birdsong. “I gotta wash and sew, go bring me thread spools and a good needle instead of messin’ around.” 

* * *

Soraka combs her fingers through her snowy mane, detangling it. Her hair nearly glows now that she’s freshly washed it. Lulu’s never managed to get her own as silky. Her hair has a consciousness of its own, and it refuses to submit. _At least it’s not as tangled now._

“He wasn’t too happy about the clothes, by the way. But that’s why I patched his overcoat. I just told him he could put it on top. I gotta check him up in a bit for a final cleanup before bed.” 

“He said anything specific?” her master asks, separating the section she’s just been done with and moving to the final one, sliding the wide-tooth ivory comb through the very tips and then further upwards. 

“I told him they had a sun cause he’s such a ray of sunshine, so he was grumpy.”

That gets a hearty laugh from the Starchild. “You shouldn’t be teasing him like that, Lulu. It’s not becoming of a healer to jest with patients in that manner.” 

“Bah!” she moans. It echoes through the steamy two-person bath, with the particular acoustics of that atmosphere. She appreciates Targon’s proposition of a room just for self-cleaning, and the commodity of heated water. “Should do, shouldn’t do. I never understand what I should or shouldn’t do.” She accidentally pulls her purple slightly too rough, making herself wince. Her tangles never give in as easy as Soraka’s. “Plus, he’s in my bedroom and he was a dick first. I don’t care. He’s being mean in my turf. He was nicer to have around when he was asleep.” 

“Hmm,” is the answer. “So long as it doesn’t put you at risk and you don’t do this with any other patient. It’s not the best manner to handle a stubborn one.” 

“I’ve never treated others like this,” the little sorceress argues in self-defense. “You’ve seen. Who knows. Maybe it’s because he’s a yordle and we just work under different rules when we’re around each other. I don’t even wanna ponder it. I just wanna make him eat a spoonful of the food he gives others. I won’t let him win while he’s lounging in my bedroom, dang it.” 

“You’re really letting your emotions run unbridled. I’d never seen it go this far. What’s breaking the dam?” 

Sometimes she detests how keen Soraka is. She can feel these things too, but never name them or do anything to change the outcome. It makes her jealous, how naturally it comes to others; especially with Soraka, how good she is at being motherly naturally. Nothing can sell a healer as well as that quality. She hasn’t even been able to fake it till she makes it. 

She puffs through her lips, frustrated. Pix is chilling in a bowl, floating in the sea of soapbark suds and steam. He’s so ridiculous, and his nonchalance actually bothers her for once. 

“We’re a deeply gregarious species,” she begins. Her face heats up suddenly, further than it was just because of the room. “We should be around each other. Leaving one of us alone can be nefarious. Not lethal by itself, but painful, yes, horribly. I’ve been alone for a while. Kin isn’t supposed to acknowledge us outlaws. That’s the punishment. We’re alone.” Something in her chest aches, something buried is clawing its way back to the surface. She sighs. 

“I saw a mark of outlawry when I was patching him up. He’s been alone for a while, too. Or, well, I infer he’s been. I hate being from this stupid species. I walk into his room and my meat wants to want him, but neither of us trusts kin, cause that’s what happens when your social species bans one of ‘em to be alone. So we’re just mean to each other, and yet my stupid, stupid flesh is like, oh would you look at that, an available male at arm’s length in your bedroom.” She accompanies it all with exaggerated hand waves. She sinks her hands down to the bathwater, squirting some with her palms with a maneuver Tristana taught her long ago.

“This is stupid. I don’t want to want him as a friend, but I also do. I just want it all to be over and that he’s gone and I never have to have another yordle around. It’s more bearable when you don’t have bait around you to remind you of the craving.” 

“Ah,” Soraka says, bashful. She gets a hold of the bowl Pix has used as his personal float, and he flies away just as she dips it in water to pour over herself, landing in a second bowl— Lulu’s. Soraka rinses her hair through one last time, opens her eyes to look at the sorceress. Lulu’s learned to wait when she does this, as she collects her thoughts. Her horizontal pupils are wide, nigh rectangular in the room’s dim light; they glimmer with the wisdom of a thousand constellations. Sometimes Lulu forgets how immensely knowledgeable she is, approachable as she makes herself through jokes and gossip. She’s actually scary when allowing a glimpse of her vast mind; Lulu knows there are things in those eyes she shouldn’t know for the sake of her own sanity. 

“I have to accept I’m used to vast fated events. These finer details, closer turmoils, I’m rough around the edges...” she flashes Lulu a tilted smile that makes her self-conscious; this descendant of infinity humbly accepting some things are on the outer borders of her grip... She feels undeserving. “I don’t understand those urges of the flesh too well. But within my reach, I can offer you meditation with me, if you want to calm that storm inside you a bit. Remember, a healer faces the shadows of their own morality head on. You should be able to help your kin selflessly, not falling to the whims of the flesh, or expecting gratitude in return.”

Lulu nods glumly. 

“But I’ve seen a multitude of you smaller beings come, and go, and share their inner grievances. With how many I’ve found, someone out there must’ve gone through something similar to you. You’re bound to him for a while; you face this challenge. You’ll speak to him and hear his thoughts and if something arises in your conversations, you can share that with me, and probably some other soul out there has gone through it and I can advise a bit better...” she giggles, it brims of gold, oranges and starlight, and Lulu actually perks a bit at the purity of that laughter. 

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up to a celestial,” she says, laughing in return— Far more bleakly. “But I’ll do my best. I have to change his bandaging now, put fresh wrappings, and I know it’s gonna suck, but I’ll try to meditate a bit after. Who knows.” 

“Try it, and please, don’t keep all that feeling pent up inside. You need self control with patients, not to rot in your angst.” Her shoulders rock, painting waves in the water as she laughs. She tilts her head to the left all cockily, raises her eyebrows at the witch. “At the very least, you’ll add to the library of small fleshling stories and help me soothe some other poor yordle girl that’s lost to her instincts later on.” 

She actually finds that funny, and if anything, that’s what she’s most grateful for. “Fair and noble. Thank you, Raka.” 

“Now, don’t dally! bandage changes shouldn’t be delayed for long.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” She shoos Pix off her bowl and rinses quickly, cleaning leftover suds and heading for her towel. 

Her towel is, in fact, all she’s wearing when waltzing inside the dungeon of Mister Pissoff himself. Formerly, bedchambers to Lulu, the Fae Sorceress, but it won’t be that for a while. He’s dazed; the painkiller potion she’s prepared for him to take with dinner appears to have kicked. He turns his head to check the source of the noise and whiplashes upright after absorbing the visual input. “Why are you nude save for a towel _in the place where your patient is_ _lodged?!_ "he hisses. 

“Cause the patient is lodged in my bedroom, smartass. Does the decor hint at a sanitarium _anywhere?_ ” she snaps back, opening her closet with a slam, revealing her collection of outfits, spare healer garbs, and drawers. 

“Maybe it was a holistic sanitarium or something!” He blinks repeatedly. His eyes land on the closet’s contents, and a second spurt of confused blinking follows. “Dear Sun, you’re going to sear my eyeballs with your fashion choices.” 

“Oh, of course. All the fey decor and purples and pinks and fuzzy cushions. I mean, all that just _screams_ holistic sanitarium, don’t it?” she points at him accusingly. “Take that back, or I _will_ force you into one of the dresses, sun ray.”

“Wh—” he gazes down, the smiling sun applique gazes back at him. “Oh, no no. Invalid. These aren’t _mine_. I didn’t pick these for myself.” 

She shakes her head. “What you think of my clothes is the smaller fault here. Did you seriously hang out in what’s clearly a female fey sorceress’ quarters for an entire afternoon and think you were in a sanitarium? That’s not a very bright assumption to make,” she jabs. “And I will be exactly as naked as I please inside my own room. You should be grateful you’re here and not in the living room in the first place. Gods.” She yanks a drawer open, pulling a nightgown out rather aggressively. “I’m gonna change your bandages soon. Did you put pants on?” 

“Okay, first of all, I know we are the same species and all, but no thanks, I’m not interested in the visual. Second, no. I kinda have a leg wrapped between two sticks and existing hurts.” 

She ignores the banter, trying to soak Soraka’s advice in her grey matter. One of the spare healer gowns comes out with a yank, as well. Then the perfect comeback hits her, and she loses the struggle not to spit it at him. “Yeah, seeing each other nude would be terrible, wouldn’t it? Shame I have to see your derriere and crotch first row ‘cause of the cut in your thigh. Truly tragic, isn’t it? Why don’t you reflect on it while I dress and come back here to do exactly that?” 

His mouth is agape when she last sees him before stomping to the living room. Soraka’s holed in her own room already, so she dresses in the kitchen, serving the disinfectant herbal water, the ointment she’s prepared for poultices in his cuts, and binding her hair. She throws the nightgown atop the couch, nailing the shot, much to her joy, and, when she’s back by his side, he observes her with dread. 

“Relax. I’ve more professionalism than you believe,” she says, peeved. “You’re just meat. I’m just meat. _All of us_ are little more than raw steak and nerves. This means nothing to me. Now clothes off, I’ve gotta clean you up.” She places the implements on the ground nearby and casts a couple extra light orbs. She misses the wooden carts Soraka and her stroll supplies around in their little sanitarium. 

He reluctantly pulls the pastel gown off, side-eyeing her awkwardly; but she’s too gone into work-mode to care. “I’m gonna have to shuffle you around a bit, so you know.” 

Veigar nods shallowly, leaning back down on the bed and closing his eyes, clearly struggling to hold his temper. She finds it three-parts endearing, hilarious, and frustrating. 

She wants to scorn herself for actually being decent and keeping quiet during the procedure, much as time stretches under the force of awkward tension, even though she knows it’s the right thing to do. She doesn’t jab him, though she wants to. She doesn’t address seeing his sex, though she does once more, though she panics under wraps knowing it’s happening and he’s aware. At one point thoughts melt into muscle memory, automatic application of things she practiced for weeks until they were done right. He says nothing, either; holds no resistance to her coaxing him around. She decides she likes him better this way without a doubt. _Two opponents hold synergy under the common threat of voyeurism._

The random body at her mercy only regains Veigar’s identity after she’s done; when she has to say his name to get him to dress up. It appears to pop him out of a trance, his eyes half-lidded in what almost seems relaxation. She shakes her head to herself. _It’s just the potion._

“You’re good to hit the hay now. I’ll be around nine tomorrow with breakfast. Yell my name if you feel something in your body go south.” 

“I used the basin again while you were away,” he says, avoiding her eyeline. His voice is lower, raspier; she chalks that up to exhaustion. If he’s embarrassed, he’ll have to let that go soon— Bandage changes happen twice a day at least for cases of his level. Nothing either of them can do about it, unless the prospect of infection makes him eager. 

“I’ll empty it. Don’t fret about it.” Her eyes dart to it. He’s put the lid on top. She hadn’t even realized she’d left the lid within his reach. How uncharacteristically considerate of him, judging by what she’s seen of his personality.

“Okay.” 

“Have a restful night,” she mumbles, more insecurely than she’d have liked.

He offers her a halfhearted nod of acknowledgment. 

Sighing, she tosses the contaminated towel and bandaging in the empty ointment bowl. A quick whistle at Pix has him loading it on his back; she carries the bloodied water pail in return. She’s two steps away from the doorway when she hears him grunt. 

“Fey.” 

“Lulu,” she corrects, too tired to even inject that with proper indignation. 

“Thank you for staying quiet while—” 

“Don’t sweat it.” She doesn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. The interjection comes out a bit too loud. 

“Alright.” 

He says nothing else, and she lifts a small gratitude at Moon for his silence. 

The basin is emptied and washed on autopilot; she cleans her hands so thoroughly the skin under her fuzz feels a bit taut afterwards. She’s too exhausted from the shift to even care, or reprimand herself about it; the offset sleep from the night before has made her sluggish through the afternoon, and the living room furniture is yelling at her to come crash on top. she’s blinking slower by the time she tip-toes through the hallway to the storage for a blanket. She doesn’t even grab a cushion. 

Surely now he must be dozing off and looking all heavenly serene again. She hates it. She hates the tender gaze she had on him hours ago. Bastard cats, all they did was disappoint her. 


	4. IV. Toccata for a Game of Sprouts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack Selection: Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum, composed by Claude Debussy

Veigar, per her expectations, does not enjoy wound cleanup time. She announces it and he, on cue, warns her on stretching the task too long, spitting it flavored like lime peels.

He similarly appears to not enjoy convalescence. He’s eaten through the portion of Lulu’s bookshelf that actually invested him at first glance —Not a large one, to be fair—at an alarming pace. Soraka’s unloaded her of any sanitarium duty, insisting she watches over him and domestic occupations instead. She doesn’t mind. The sanitarium has never been too crowded; no case she’s addressed so far, before the Angry Man, needed a lengthy stay. This means she can’t always entertain him, though, caring for plants and making food and cleaning things; and when she allows herself a glimpse toward her quarters, he’s invariably flipping pages, eyes methodically scanning the text while he wears the expression of a hardened scholar.

He reminds her of her beef with Ionian Durio berries; mouth-watering pulp under a thick shell. When she tried to dig in and crack them open, it would often be too tough and her nails would bend rather than cut through the exterior. It became so frustrating at times the insides weren’t rewarding anymore.

The day before yesterday she’s combined these two factors into a clever solution, and that brief stroke of genius still elates her two days after. Simple deal: He stops hissing venom at her gangrene prevention routine and she brings him outside, where he can skim the rest of the home’s library and explore his surroundings to his heart’s content. It has given her a new hobby of piecing what tidbits of information he lends her together into a story, or at least, whatever she can salvage from their verbal sparring.

Every stroke of genius Lulu has comes with stupid tangents, though. They’ve manifested physically in the books she handed him without second thought, that now have him interrogating her like she hides intel that will save his life. Last night, he finally finished Manual of Adequate Routine Care Practices—one of her sacred tomes since she’s been under Soraka’s wing, that he scanned through in a couple days— and moved on to Testimonials on Faerie Contact. He’s insufferable today.

She’s probably sweeping the floor a lot more angrily than she should.

“I thought you found me a foolish, naïve healer and weren’t interested in my discipline, going off all the drivel you spit while I try to keep your leg maggot-free,” she says. “You know they don’t like all that curiosity, don’t you? Most people who seek Them out never find anything. They arrive first.”

“Did it happen to you that way, too?” He taps the fingertips of both his hands together like he’s executing some master strategy, and she wants to wipe that smug smile off his face like nothing else.

She huffs, shuffling the broom under the short woven reed chair and footrest he’s reclining in while he watches her work. She loves bragging about Pix, but the way he goes about it, poking relentlessly, makes her want to not do so just to spite him.

“Keep prying like that, and you’re gonna piss my friends off. And you don’t want that.” She brushes all the dust into a little pile. “Plus, I have to dig until my arms are sore for info on you, so you’re the fool assuming you can just pull whatever fun facts about me you want for free.”

“Are you offering me a deal?”

She pokes him with the broom, sweeping it over his torso, making him flail his arms in self defense with a hiss.

“I am saying, either you stop, or we play a game.” She reaches for the dustpan, holds it in an arm while she tries to shove all the dirt into it with the other. Her twiggy arm isn’t enough to hold the broom steady. This part is always particularly frustrating. “Surely, if you wish so much to know everything there is to some random yordle witch healer, you won’t mind gambling for it a little, no? Aren’t you supposedly brimming with wit and power?”

It’s Veigar who huffs out of his nose now, crinkling it in annoyance, but without answer. She flashes him a devious glance, basking in his hesitation before focusing back on the dustpan. “You don’t really think me that stupid if you take your time to ponder it. Woe, the bastion of magical prowess bows before the fool. Delightful.”

“I accept,” He scoffs, staring daggers into her. She reels in that little victory, his defensiveness just confirming he can try to cheat her, but not himself—He can’t look down on her, not in a way that’s honest to his conscience. She won’t let him.

“Excellent.” Her little fey companion flutters to the bin, pushing it her way; Lulu tosses the contents of the dustpan in one graceful arc, almost like the spin of a waltz. “Can I have some paper and charcoals, please?” She tells Pix, and he salutes her before fluttering away, drawing a giggle out of her.

She wiggles her right index at one of the books in a random shelf—Soraka’s an avid reader, much like her guest— and it flutters to her hand, flapping its covers and pages like a bird would its wings while soaring over the Ionian coast, scanning the waters for prey. It falls dead on her grip upon arrival, and with a second gesture, she summons a cushion and lands it on the floor at the warlock’s side, where she sits cross legged.

“Have you ever played Sprouts?” She asks. He sits up, peering over his outstretched legs to look down at her—Literally this time around.

“Can’t say I’m familiar,” he answers, raising an eyebrow. He rests his elbow on a side of the wicker chair to face her better.

“Quite simple. The rounds are rather short, too.” Pix arrives with two charcoal pencils and a notepad she’s bound herself for miscellaneous reminders, that remains mostly blank, cause she forgets to use it. “Player one, that will be me—“ she smiles toward him, pleased with the way his frown deepens just slightly— “places two dots on the page in whatever position.” Using the book as support, she opens the pad in a random page and does so. “Then player two, you, will connect them with a line. After that, you will add a dot anywhere on the line, except the ends, the first two dots I drew. That will split the line in two.” She draws a third dot, a little star, halfway between the line joining her two dots. “Then player one has their turn, and has to also connect two dots with a line, then split it anywhere, then player two again, and so on.” She puts her charcoal down, handing him his.

“Three simple rules. Each dot can have three lines sprouting from it at most. The lines cannot cross or touch themselves or each other. You can join a dot to itself, but that counts as two lines. That is it. First player to leave the other without room for lines wins.”

She flips to a blank page. Perhaps it would have been wiser to ask Pix for some gum to erase; but wouldn’t the game be more exciting if they couldn’t undo their mistakes?

“You win a round, you can ask something about me. I win a round, I can ask something about you. Surely a warlock as witty as you will leave me dry before I get to ask my first question, hmm?” She lands two dots, diagonal to each other, with two firm taps of her charcoal, handing him the notepad with a smile.

Veigar’s eyes flicker between her and the notepad. He swallows in what can only be uncertainty. Her smile widens, teeth poke between her lips. His hand isn’t all that firm when he receives the paper.

* * *

She bites her cheek to resist laughter, scribbling a little smiling face in a corner of the sheet. “What do you work as? I know you are a mage; I know you handle the stars. What for? What _is_ it you do?”

Veigar is so tight the tendons of his neck actually poke under his fur while he blurts the answer through grit teeth. “Handling space like putty. I wander the world scouring artifacts, power and knowledge about the stars and the dark beyond. One ought to know what one wants to tame inside and out— The better I understand them, the easier I can get them to act to my will.” 

Lulu’s eyes glimmer; her gaze peels from the paper and onto his face. She takes note of how he omits his deeper motivations; urged to dig her nails into his conscious and tangle it apart for the big reveal. “You best not be lying. The boys won’t appreciate it. They will creep into room at night, under your blanket; gnaw at your toes.”

He swallows, licks his lips— She loves every second of it; loves giving him little scares and his discomfort. She didn’t understand why people got drunk on power before, but her mind is wrapping around it bit by bit.

“Take it,” she says, stretching her arm out. “If you promise to be fair, I will be too. Have the first turn. You can use it to your advantage.”

He crinkles his nose once more, but Lulu refuses to give up on this bliss. “What’s the matter, old master of the stars? Scared of a little fey sprite?”

He tears the pad and book far more aggressively from her this time around. His two dots are down like he’s trying to stab the paper through. He almost tosses it all toward her, as if meaning to slap her face with it; she laughs— She can’t hold that in any longer. “Come on, don’t be a sore loser. That’s so childish.” Her line is down on one firm stroke, and she splits it with a tiny flower, so she can tell her moves apart from his.

Veigar corners her this time around. She crosses the whole thing over with a single, long line to seal her failure, blowing a letdown whistle. “Ask away, champ. You earned it.”

He taps the pencil on his chin repeatedly, musing; Lulu feels like he’s going to ask her to strip down then and there. “How old are you?”

“Big number,” she answers with a shrug. Her fingers instinctively twirl a curl and that is far more interesting than him all of a sudden.

“That’s not an answer.”

Her face flushes; she purses her lips. He isn’t wrong; she has played herself asking for unambiguity. “I don’t know the date when I was born. Things happened. Big number, I say. That is as far as I can tell you.” She hopes he’ll just take the half-truth and stop there. He stares into her, questions dancing in his eyes, and she curls into herself slightly, shuffling in discomfort.

He hums. “I’ll take it. Now make your move, Witch— Don’t dally.”

“How old are _you_?” She asks. He looks jaded, and his curiosity has beckoned hers.

He chuckles. It’s bitter, dejected. He crosses his fingers, lays his hands atop his tummy, sinking back into the chair for a moment. Lulu observes him gather his thoughts.

“ _Old_ ,” he begins. “May as well leave it in Big Number, as well. But I don’t like half-truths, unlike some others.” Lulu puffs her cheeks in a pout at the jab. “So I’ll clue you in. I was a young man around aftermath of the Rune Wars.”

“The Rune Wars,” she echoes. The choice of referencing her a time scale is clever, she has to admit— she didn’t even ponder it, perhaps cause she knew so little of grand scheme history, having been away all that long.

She supposes she can treat him on one little thing, if only to repay her debt of honesty. “I don’t remember the date of my birth— but I know it was before then.”

“You don’t look the part,” he drones, his eyebrows raising slightly. She can’t tell if that is out of surprise or suspicion.

“Things happened, as I said.”

He hums, and the short peachy fur in her spine raises in embarrassment, vulnerability. She pours all her attention in the grooves of the stone floor, each thread woven into the cushion she sits atop; and doesn’t stare away from it until the notepad taps the crown of her head.

“Do you fare from Bandle City?”

Veigar seems rather disappointed at two losses in a row. His voice is nearly mechanical as he speaks. “Yes. I haven’t returned in a long while, though.”

“I never heard mentions of you there.” Lulu tilts her head. Pix flutters away and only then does she notice he was hanging around atop her bun. “Sorry,” she tells the faerie. He gives her a couple angry chirps before sitting on her shoulder. “Yeah, you can hang out there.”

“I haven’t returned in long enough to be let slide.”

She narrows her eyes—buried melancholy rumbles beneath those words, beneath the timbre of his voice. “How come?”

“Things happened.” He bares his neat sharp fangs in a hotshot smile, and she takes the verbal blow, loosening up.

“Fair,” she says, chuckling. She observes the mannerisms of his hand as he flips the page, strong and elegant, and can’t help the intrigue stirring in her belly.

* * *

Veigar hisses, and she draws her hand away— though he’s all scrunched up, and holds a pillow close to hide his face in, he doesn’t spit a stream of curses. She appreciates his commitment to their little deals— He’s so honorable, for all the dark things he says about himself.

“Sorry,” Lulu mumbles. “I am almost done. One more dab and you’re all set.”

“Hurry instead of apologizing,” he says, his throat tight.

She rushes through the final disinfection and wrapping, his embarrassment almost palpable; it _is_ part of her craft to not draw torture out. His eyes are tight in a wince when she lets the sheets fall atop him.

“Rest well,” she drones on auto pilot as she nears the doorframe; simple manners dug so deeply into her brain by Teemo and Tristana she does them without thinking.

“Tell your friends to stay away from my feet and I’ll hold up.” Lulu notices the warlock’s shoulders loosen mildly; the way he braves through pain without so much as a whimper, all curses and hisses, borders on unnerving. She’s so used to watching others weep and writhe.

“They won’t bother you— if you held your part of the agreement, that is.”

All he does is breathe deep, shifting on the bed to a more comfortable position.

“Healer.”

“Lulu,” she says. “Yes?”

“Care for a second round of sprouts?” His head turns just enough to let her know he’s listening.

The sorceress has to hold her tongue into ten knots not to jab him. “I can’t tend to your whims all the time.” She straightens her shoulders, feigning elegance she doesn’t have an ounce of; truly, she’s thrilled at the chance to dig around for all his minutia even further. “But yes, if you let me do my chores first.” She pulls the lips of her corners down so they won’t go up instead.

“That’s good enough.” He tries pulling the bedcovers further over himself; jumps at the stab of pain when his injured hand coils around them. Lulu quickly paces the distance back to him and pulls them up to his neck, much to his dismay, it appears.

“You’re not helping your hand. Just ask if you need a favor from me—I’m your healer,” she nags. She hates how much she cares; hates her healer instincts overtake all other weird feelings this crabby old yordle causes her.

“I will beat you at tomorrow’s round. You will see the true extent of my intelligence.” His eyes are already losing their spark under the kick of his nightly painkiller infusion, and Lulu doesn’t want to find him as funny as she does.

“Sure, sure,” she concedes. He’s too sleepy to actually listen to her fussing. “Now rest.”

* * *

“His name is Veigar. He is old. He studies astronomy and the magic of the stars and thinks power is everything and he’s such an egotist. He learned his craft under a coven of mages striving to understand the meanings of astral movements after the Rune Wars, when he was just a young man. He was born in Bandle City but hasn’t been there for a long long time, cause he is banished and he probably knows I know.”

She sighs, running her hands through her hair and twirling purple curls in her fingers, almost pulling. “His favorite color is navy blue. He likes coffee without sugar or cream.” Her nose wrinkles, mouth pointing all over. Maybe she’s actually going mad, maybe all that time in the Glade alone took a hot minute to ricochet onto her but now it’s happening and her sanity’s slipping, and so she’ll take any company, any scarred handsome man with bitter words.

She can almost feel Pix’s deadpan stare. “I know how you’re looking at me,” she whines. “Stop, I already have enough knowing Raka would make me eat my tongue...”

Her eyes make out the path of his fluttering; he ends up sitting cross legged smack in her field of view. “It’s all because he’s banished and I’m thirsty for company...” she tries avoiding the fairy’s scrutiny, and he pokes and pinches all over her so she can’t. “Can you believe what not talking to kin does to a yordle...?”

Pix pulls one of her curls. Rough. She squeals. “ _Ow!_ Okay, okay. I’m sorry. He will still leave! It’s just weird cause my only friend is Raka.” A second pull, just as rough. “And you, _and you!_ ” She peeps, hands shooing the little bug away. “Just lemme try to sleep, sheesh.”

One second she is curling into herself, stirred by anxious thoughts—the next, she is out, blown off like a candle.

* * *

“Raka?”

She overslept. Ah, gods damn it. Hopefully the Starchild tended to Veigar. She’ll still have to endure a reprimand. She sighs; the knot in her bun is messy today, her hands too fast to properly neaten it. She runs out of her room, past Veigar’s doorframe — Wait, no, Veigar, is he alright? He’s still asleep. But he was supposed to be up a while ago, when she roused him for breakfast—Did he also usually sleep in? What a dork.

“Raka, I’m sorry, I don’t know what took over me, I slept in. It won’t happen again—“

Her mentor’s room is empty; her belongings are lightly stirred, her closet wide open, few garbs missing. Lulu’s eyes widen in surprise; she paces to the living room, stopping by the kitchen— it is undisturbed, impeccable; the dishes she washed after dinner haven’t even been put back into the shelves. The Starchild isn’t there, either, nor at the living room; like she left in the middle of the night, without even eating or rearranging her quarters after packing. What?

She scans her surroundings for any clue, and only then does she notice atiny, neatly folded paper where she treated the Lunari boy the night Veigar arrived. She inspects it nervously, expecting a Solari ransom or something just as grisly; but the paper doesn’t particularly look the part. Her fingers fight a bit unfolding it, the penmanship within unmistakably Soraka’s.

_Lulu,_

_You will find me missing when you wake. A Lunari Messenger has arrived before the sun. The boy, Aphelios, has held up well after his visit. His people were marveled. The messenger said they were sent by the Lunari to retrieve me for a difficult case. They could only do this while it was dark and without warning, understandably. The pay for these services is generous, as the patient appears to be particularly important._

_I told the messenger of you and how we help each other, and was told the pay would be enough to sustain both of us without opening the sanitarium. Every seven sundowns a Lunari messenger will arrive at night with gold and silver for you. Keep the sanitarium closed and tend to your patient and the house with that gold while I return. I will also send letters through the messenger with any news._

_Stay safe and be wise. May the stars bless you._

_Soraka_   
  


_At least she knew I wasn’t ready to keep the sanitarium running on my own_ , Lulu thinks, sighing in relief. She wasn’t expecting it, but she couldn’t be upset by the news. She wondered how much that gold was, exactly. _Well, I have plenty of supplies here for Mister Pissoff, anyway..._

She puts the note down, headed for the kitchen. She ponders if she should wake Veigar first, but decides to receive him with breakfast already on the table; if only so he won’t annoy her while she cooks— Food is sacred, never to be done without love.

While she pulls out pots and pans, her mind circles around the Lunari, but she’s not full of time to ruminate on it— she should also clean Soraka’s room, maybe she can take over it while Veigar is around...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOOOOO i am aware it has been a while! Corona is kind of hellish to do stuff that needs concentration as much as writing does, I have suffered a lot with it :^ D papaveraceae is in absolute development hell but I don’t want to leave everything in a standstill so have this
> 
> Sprouts is a real game I found out while actually searching games for two on pen and paper specifically for this fanfic and you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouts_(game)


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